The debate regarding the extent to which most favoured nation (‘MFN’) clauses in bilateral investment treaties (‘BITs’) can expand the scope of application of such treaties is a well-established and evolving dialogue in investment treaty jurisprudence. However, while the issues around the extension of substantive and procedural protections in BITs have received considerable attention, the…
Indonesia is not the only Asia-Pacific nation that is reassessing investment treaties containing provisions on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS, especially arbitration). India announced a review in 2013, partly in the wake of the successful claim from an Australian mining investor, although the impact in practice is hard to discern or predict – especially under the…
The Law Commission of India under the chairmanship of Justice AP Shah had constituted an expert committee to work on the 246th Report on “Amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996” which was recently submitted to the Government of India. In this piece, Ashutosh Ray, who was a part of the expert committee, covers…
Enactment of a federal arbitration law has been ‘imminent’ since the United Arab Emirates acceded to the New York Convention in 2006 (the ‘Convention’). Once enacted, it is expected that the federal law will repeal Articles 203 to 218 of Federal Law (11) of 1992, the Civil Procedure Code (‘CPC’), which currently govern arbitration in…
The value of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) procedures has lately been questioned by a number of countries. The Australian Government’s 2011 Trade Policy Statement – stating that Australia would not agree to ISDS in its treaties – caused much debate and controversy. In part, Australia’s policy was motivated by the Philip Morris claim, instituted in…
By Justin D’Agostino and Timothy Hughes, Herbert Smith Freehills The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC“) has amended its Model Clauses in order to include an optional provision that specifies the parties’ choice of law to apply to an arbitration clause. The express designation of a particular law to govern an arbitration clause does not…
Do international arbitrators have the power to overturn interim measures granted by a Brazilian court? Do Brazilian courts have the power to stay international arbitrations? A recent decision rendered in the Petroplus Sul Comércio Exterior S.A. (“Petroplus”) et al. v. First Brands do Brasil Ltda. et al. (“First Brands”) dispute has just provided its answer…
A few days ago, this blog published an outsider’s perspective on the decision of the Supreme Court of India (SCI) in Reliance v Union of India (Reliance v Union of India, Civ App No. 5675 of 2014 (Supreme Court of India)) which has been applauded by international practitioners around the world since it curbed the…
A recent decision of the German Federal Supreme Court dated 8 May 2014 (case reference no. III ZR 371/12) again calls for a debate on the binding effect of an arbitration agreement for a non-signatory – a well-known and highly-debated phenomenon since the Dow Chemical arbitration. The Dow Chemical case According to the award rendered…
I. General Aspects of Enforceability English Worldwide Freezing Order (“WFO”) being called by Matthias Scherer and Simone Nadelhofer one of the “nuclear weapons” of commercial litigation and arbitration, is a preliminary injunction preventing a defendant from disposing of assets pending the resolution of the underlying substantive (arbitration or court) proceedings. Its issue in support of…
In an order dated 28 January 2014 (file number III ZB 40/13), the German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof, the “Court”) clarified that an arbitral award can only be set aside in recognition or enforcement proceedings by a state court in “extremely exceptional cases”, i.e. if an award breaches the fundamental principles of the German legal…
Investment arbitration is a crucial and sensitive dispute-resolution method, notably because the treatment given to foreign investment matters may materially affect the economic and social realities of a country or region, particularly those in development. In the last decade, however, as already reported and addressed in this blog by, among many others, Vanessa Giraud and…
The potential intervention of Indian courts over foreign seated arbitrations is a hot topic in international arbitration. On 28 May 2014, the Supreme Court of India (“SCI”) heated up the debate by handing down a judgment in Reliance Industries Limited & Anr v Union of India. The SCI found that Indian courts had no jurisdiction…
and Li Meng, AnJie Law Firm Whether foreign arbitration institutions could conduct arbitration in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) is a question that many industry insiders are curious about. Back in 2006, when the Wuxi Intermediate People’s Court (“Wuxi Court”) refused to recognize and enforce an arbitral award issued by the ICC Court of…
Thank you to everyone who has participated in our Survey on the Enforcement of International Arbitration Awards in China. We have been gratified at the strong number of responses. We wanted to remind anyone who has not yet had a chance to fill out the survey that we will be closing the survey to new…
By Carlos González–Bueno and Laura Lozano, González-Bueno & Asociados, Madrid. It is commonly understood that Latin American countries have played an important dominant role as respondents in ICSID cases. This has led to the withdrawal from the ICSID Convention by several Latin American countries. Interestingly, however, according to recent ICSID statistics, cases filed against Latin…
By Jelita Pandjaitan and Justin Tang The China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (the “FTZ”) was launched in September 2013 with promises of relaxed controls in key areas such as foreign exchange and foreign investment. In the subsequent nine months, a raft of initiatives have included the liberalisation of offshore RMB financing and other cross-border…
and Sapna Jhangiani, Clyde & Co. and Joseph P. Matthews J.D., University of Miami School of Law for Young Arbitration Practitioners It has been some time since the White Industries Australia Limited v Republic of India judgment was rendered against India in 2011. However, there remain several interesting aspects of the case still not widely…
Armada (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Under Judicial Management) v Gujarat NRE Coke Limited [2014] FCA 636 Justice Foster of the Federal Court of Australia handed down judgment on 17 June 2014 in an application for the enforcement of three foreign arbitral awards. The key issue for determination before the court was whether the applicant, Armada (Singapore)…
Dr. Ileana M. Smeureanu 1)Ileana Smeureanu is an associate attorney with Jones Day (Paris). This article is based on a speech that the author gave at the ICC YAF/YAPP 6TH Joint Annual Colloquium “Young Approaches to Arbitration”, Vienna (Austria), 12 April 2014. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and…
In two recent decisions, Banyan Tree v. Meydan Group LLC (Case No. ARB 003-2013) and X1 and X2 v. Y1 and Y2 (Case No. ARB 002-2013), the DIFC Court of First Instance (H.E. Justice Omar Al Muhairi and Sir John Chadwick respectively) confirmed its jurisdiction to recognise and enforce within the DIFC arbitral awards rendered…
Although Turkey has ratified the ICSID Convention as early as in 1988, it was not until the recent decade that its domestic law recognized the possibility to resort to arbitration against the State. Until 2000s, disputes arising between a public authority and a private party were to be resolved in an appeal to administrative courts…
Co-authored by Georg von Segesser, Benjamin Moss and Aileen Truttmann, Schellenberg Wittmer An arbitral tribunal’s relationship to state courts remains a complex and often contested topic. A particularly interesting question in this regard is whether a party to arbitral proceedings should be able to seek recovery of damages it was ordered to pay in state…
In keeping with our tradition of surveying readers on key developments in international arbitration, we invite readers with experience in mainland China to fill out our survey on the enforcement of international arbitration awards in China. Julian Ku, Bei Xiao and I have been studying this topic for several months now, and we note the…
